August 01, 2014

Press release by Al-Qassam Brigades regarding the breach of the humanitarian truce, the alleged capture of an Israeli soldier and the clashes at Rafah Crossing:

Following the Israeli army’s breach of the humanitarian truce on the morning of Friday 1st August 2014 and its incursion into Eastern Rafah and its on-going shelling and deployment of snipers in Gaza, a massacre, which is still on-going, was committed against innocent civilians in Rafah which led to the death of tens of Palestinians. The justification for this massacre was the alleged capture of an Israeli soldier.

We, Al-Qassam Brigades, after carrying out an internal investigation, would like to confirm the following:

1. Since Friday dawn what happened was that the Israeli forces led an incursion 2 kilometres into Eastern Rafah at night, taking advantage of talks regarding the suggested humanitarian truce. We believe that clashes took place as a result between the enemy and our ambush at the site at the time. The clashes began at 7.00am, before the proposed truce was in effect, while the enemy launched its attack on civilians at 10.00am, blatantly violating the truce in aims of finding a missing soldier.

2. We have lost contact with our members at the ambush and believe that they have been martyred in the attack and that the missing soldier was killed, that’s on the assumption that he was captured.

3. Al-Qassam Brigades have no knowledge regarding the soldier missing in action or his location or the circumstances of his disappearance.

4. We have notified mediators which arranged the humanitarian ceasefire that we agree to ceasefire on Israeli territories, but for all practical purposes we cannot ceasefire against advancing enemy troops which are on the move all the time as they engage with our forces andthat leads to scrimmages.